Naruto, the Cloaked Schemer
by InfinityOrNone
Summary: DEAD FIC DEAD FIC DEAD FIC
1. Chapter 1

**Me: That's right, yet another work from the mill. I came up with something I'm almost positive is unique here: Naruto, modeled after a member of Organization 13. But I'm not going with Axle, or Demyx, or Xemnas, or even Larxene. No, I'm going with my favorite and the most unappreciated of them all: Zexion. Also, I think it'll be a bit of a challenge to write due to, in canon, Zexion being a tactical genius with an under-developed personality and Naruto being… well, Naruto. Also, I only update if I get an equal amount of reviews as Favs! So REVIEW! MWAHAHAHA!**

**Naruto: Please do it. He doesn't feed us unless people review.**

**Me: Quiet! Back to work in the plot mine!**

**Neji: But sir, the canary died! It's toxic down there!**

**Me: Then just hope that people care enough about you to add the text */give_mask/* to the end of their review! MWAHAHA!**

**P.S, There will be NO Sharingan bashing, Uchiha bashing, or Sakura bashing. Think of this fic as my way of proving neutrality to team 7. But there will be Kankuro bashing. I hate him. A lot. HE MUST DIE!**

**P.P.S, I know Zexon's books real name, I just go by a shortened and more awesome sounding version.**

**P.P.P.S, I love wasting your time!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Kingdom Hearts, or much of anything… but I do own YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-ha-ack! *starts choking***

**UPDATE: As of July 17, 2012 I am revising this story. As my reviewers have pointed out, the chapter styles are very inconsistent due to time between updates and it alienates people. In addition to that, the quality and flavor and everything changed over time, and I just hate that. As such, I'm going through and fixing things. The mass edit will take time and, as I'm not doing an actual update while adding this, nobody who's read it before will know until I do and anyone who's new will read it and have no clue what I'm talking about, so it really serves no purpose. Eh, fuck that noise.**

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The Hokage Tower of Konoha was many things. Built as one of the first buildings in the village, it has served as the center of political and military power since its inception. As the tallest building in the city, it had served as a signal spot in times of war. As the oldest building in the village, it served as a symbol of its founder's ideals. As the safest building in the city, it had always served as the greatest library in the village, and that is how our hero was using it on one fateful August 29th.

On that day, a six-year-old blond by the name of Uzumaki Naruto was brought to the tower by the closest thing he had to family, the aging Sandaime Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi. This normally would not be a problem for villains at large, but Naruto was going to enter the ninja academy tomorrow and the aged kage had, in a small fit of genius, allowed Naruto access to any book in the tower that might help him, after placing an "Ignore Me" genjutsu over any book that might teach him something that could cause an accidental suicide. The Hokage, though, is human.

"I wonder if there are any books on top of the shelf," said a six-year-old Naruto, a small bag filled with books and scrolls on the ground next to him. Looking up at the top of the 12-foot-tall shelves from his 3-foot-5-inches height, he couldn't see anything, but there had to be **something** to help him become an awesome ninja! All he'd been able to grab were a few books with titles like A Beginners Guide to Chakra Control and Basic Survival Skills and all the others were stupid sounding, like _Kekkei Tota_: A theoretical and practical examination of pluripotent chakra and its methods of use. He was pretty sure one of those wasn't actually a real word!

As Naruto climbed the bookshelf, he began to see just how unwise a course of action it was. Although he had climbed the steps on the outside of the tower and actually lived on the top floor of his apartment complex, the height of the bookshelf was dizzying and he could not back down. Although the veritable Everest challenged him and left him with vertigo, he couldn't simply stop and go back. He had to be the best ninja ever! As he thought these thoughts and closed his eyes to try and climb faster the most peculiar thing happened:

"Ouch, my head!"

He hit the roof. This moment, though, was unintended. A mis-stitch in the tapestry of fate, this moment had great consequences, consequences that began with a shelf dropping from within the roof. On this shelf lie a collection of books and scrolls and tablets, numbering at 14 and wreathed in destiny.

"Cool. I wonder if any of these can help me," Naruto said, before looking at them, reading their titles. Most sounded boring, like "I, Shadows of Nothing," or "IX, Sonnets to Water." Some bugged him, like "X, Fate of the Roll." Some were confusing like "XIV, Links of Memory." A few sounded cool, like "VIII Sparking the Burning Will," but there was one that he just felt drawn to. He couldn't, for reasons unknown to himself or the world, keep his eye off "VI, Another Hallucination." So, as can be expected of a six-year-old, he grabbed the book and added it to the pile. He actually would have grabbed them all if the shelf hadn't risen shut the moment his hand was clear after grabbing his book. After making his way back down from the terrible heights and placing the leather-bound tome in his bag the Hokage walked in.

"Ah, Naruto-kun! Tell me, did you find anything you think will help you in the academy?" asked Sarutobi.

"Sure did, Ojiji! Soon, I'll be the one wearing your hat!" shouted Naruto, pointing with his eyes closed at the rather stupid looking hat, having forgotten to mention the hidden compartment in his ADD induced rant.

"I'll walk you home, Naruto. I promise you won't have any problems with the villagers this day," said Hiruzen, before he lead Naruto, bag in tow, home.

_VI Timeskip VI_

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It was now 6 years later and the past years had gone rather well for Naruto. After he had read all the normal books and scrolls he had gotten from Sarutobi, he had began reading Another Hallucination and, as it turns out, the thing wasn't so much a 'lexicon' as it claimed to be, but an encyclopedia of fighting with the power of illusions. He'd began doing everything the book told him to do, and it seemed it was never wrong. He'd changed his wardrobe to a black shirt, black hakama, black padded boots, black gloves, and a large black cloak, because the book said it worked to be a good way to hide in the dark, the cloak he could hide things in, and in his opinion he looked "all mysterious and stuff." Naruto had also changed his hair style. It was still spiky, but the spikes were angled so as to be almost flat and he'd grown it out and combed it slightly so that the hair on his right side went down over his right eye and almost to his chin. He'd also gained a few purple-blue highlights here and there, although he had no idea why. As well, his time spent reading had bleached his skin of its tan, and his 'whiskers' were all but gone.

As well the book had turned him into his own antithesis. He had become a bookworm, reading everything he could under the books advisement. It had told him that the more he knew, the harder it would be for someone to recognize an illusion because he'd know more details about his illusions. At this point he'd do anything the book told him by now, although the book still taught him as much as it did back when he'd started reading it years ago, despite reading it through several times over. It was almost like the book had a mind of its own, teaching him anything he asked for that it had in it. It would probably worry anyone else… but the book told Naruto not to be troubled by this, so he wasn't.

But back on task, it was the last week of school for the soon-to-be Gennin. This meant that Naruto could finally show off without fear of retribution. Sure, he'd used all of his book smarts during his tenure at the academy, but he was also physically weak, although he was fast and had a simply gigantic reserve of chakra. Coupling this with the fact that his way of fighting was… indirect to say the least, and the fact that no jutsu were to be used during academy spars, and it meant he was smack dab even on the bell curve. But that would all change, because today they were allowed to use jutsu (so long as they didn't aim to kill) and that meant he could finally shine!

_VI 3 Hours Later VI_

"Alright class! Today were going to spar with chakra and jutsu! So long as you don't try to kill your opponent, it's anything goes!" shouted Mizuki, before he started pairing people up and, lo and behold, he 'surprisingly' pitted Naruto, the 'weakling' against Uchiha Sasuke, the Rookie of the Year. He also, totally not-on-purpose or with malice of forethought, began with their fight

"Ready? GO!" he shouted, starting the match. Sasuke got into position, in his standard taijutsu form, but Naruto instead just stayed in place.

"What's the matter, dobe? Can't you tell when a fight's about to begin?" Sasuke taunted.

"No, I was merely wondering when you decided that a simple 'hello' was too much to spare. But if you so desire to fight immediately, then I shall oblige," said our hero, years of learning showing through in his language, before he reached within his cloak and pulled out…

"A book? Time to fight not read!" shouted Sasuke, before charging and… stopping as, from universal perspective a monster, tall, white, and humanoid, suddenly leaped from the tome.

"Summoning? That's the way you play, is it? Fine then! Kanton: Goukakyuu no jutsu!" shouted the Uchiha, launching a torrent of flame at the 'monster' which then leapt away, causing Sasuke to miss and repeat this action again and again, getting madder and madder each time he missed, until finally he hit the thing, and ran out of spare chakra, only to see the thing undamaged, before it ran out at him, aiming to tear his face off… only for it to pass through him, nothing but an illusion.

"What was THAT?" asked/shouted a random bystander who's hair was singed slightly in the crossfire.

"This is my primary skill: Illusion. It is strange, seeing as the Uchiha were masters of illusion themselves, but I guess this proves that Sasuke still has much to learn," responded Naruto, eyes closed and smirking just slightly.

"The Uchiha are always the best!" shouted Sasuke, who then got up from his place (cowering) on the ground, and ran at Naruto.

Naruto finally opened his eyes, raised his hand, pulled his sleeve up, and said, "Fine then. How about a taste of my most supreme technique?" said Naruto, before he unleashed his chakra, causing him to levitate about a decameter above the ground by sheer chakra pressure.

Sasuke stopped in his tracks when the whole floating thing began, but after that things got weird. I mean REALLY weird. Naruto grabbed his book with his raised hand and pointed it at Sasuke, causing pages to be launched at him. But rather than do… actual damage, the pages (which he tried to deflect with his fists) passed through him, returning to Naruto.

"Hm. So much pyromania. No matter, all hope of your victory is nothing… Nothing but an illusion!" shouted Naruto, who then began floating in circles around Sasuke… before unleashing several kanton jutsu at him.

"H-how are you stealing my jutsu?" asked a burn and beaten Sasuke, who was on the verge of unconsciousness.

"The Sharingan is not inimitable in jutsu larceny," said Naruto, who then stopped hovering and walked off, leaving Sasuke to vanish from the land of the waking.

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"The child is possessed by the demon!" shouted Mizuki to the Hokage as he slammed his fist on the desk, raging and impotent.

"Oh? How is that?" asked the Sarutobi clansman.

"Yesterday he was pathetically weak, and now he almost murdered Uchiha-sama!" cried the future traitor as if that was almost all the evidence needed.

"I was watching that fight, actually. As you SHOULD have noticed, Naruto-kun is physically weaker, but in that fight he didn't through a single punch. Instead, he followed one of your lessons to the letter by distracting him with genjutsu to waste his chakra and then strike," said Hiruzen.

"But what about when he stole Sasuke's jutsu? And those types of genjutsu aren't taught at the academy!" Mizuki cried, grasping at straws to prove that his student was a monster.

"It's all written in that book of his. I gave it to him myself," said the Hokage, and it wasn't a total lie.

_VI Flashback VI_

"Hokage-jiji, I brought your books back," said an eight-year-old Naruto said, a large bag filled with rectangular and cylindrical objects.

"Alright then, Naruto-kun. Just hand them to me and I'll put them away," said the Hokage, before Naruto handed him a book and he placed it in its proper place. This continued until Naruto tried to hand the Hokage a thick, leather and copper bound book. The old man had just placed his fingertips on the cover, not but brushing even the slightest bit against the book, when he was tossed back by a shockwave of chakra from the book.

"OJIJI!" cried our hero, who dropped the book and ran to the old man's side.

"Naruto-kun, where did you get that book?" asked the kage urgently.

"In this thing on top of a bookshelf," said Naruto. Although after a half hour of searching for it, they couldn't find the thing, so the Hokage gave the book to Naruto, if only because it was too dangerous in the hands of anyone else.

_VI End Flashback VI_

"I… understood, Hokage-sama," said Mizuki, who then left the Hokage Tower. Meanwhile, Mizuki's thoughts were far darker. _'If I can use a transformation jutsu to look like the demon, then steal the forbidden scroll and take it to Orochimaru-sama, then I kill the demon and burn his body, they'll think HE killed ME and went traitor, and I'll be a hero and prove that senile old man wrong!'_ This is, of course, overlooking the fact that Naruto had done nothing wrong, so it merely proved the Sandaime right, but Mizuki honestly didn't care about that.

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We now look in 4 days later, at the day of graduation. Right now, Naruto, who was in his desk reading, was being approached by someone.

"Hello Naruto-kun," said Hinata, who took a seat next to him.

"Salutations, Hinata-chan," said Naruto to his shy friend. The two had known each other for years, as the day Naruto had started to read his book constantly she had gotten the courage to sit next to him and a friendship sparked like fire.

_VI Flashback VI_

Hinata had just barely walked into the room and already expected the end of the world. Uzumaki Naruto, her secret crush, was here, **EARLY**, and was quietly, in his seat, **READING**! And he was reading a real book, with lots of words in it, and with minimal pictures! Something wasn't right!

"Oh, n-n-Naruto-ku-kun, h-how are you?" she said, silently reprimanding herself for the stutter.

"I'm doing great! Oh, your name's something like, um, Hana, no, um… Hinata, right?" Naruto asked the dark haired girl he had about a grand total of 10 minutes interaction with beforehand.

"Y-yes, and why a-are y-y-you reading? You n-never read," she said, a small blush adorning her features.

"I'm reading because this book is telling me how to be an… awe-inspiring shinobi? Is that even a real sentence?" he said, looking from the book to Hinata and back, repeating the cycle twice before saying, "I guess it is. So, how'd you like to sit next to me?"

Things went swimmingly from there.

_VI End Flashback VI_

"So, uh, do you think you'll pass, Naruto-kun?" she asked.

"Of course I shall. Even if I lack whatever skill they demand, I can manufacture an illusion of myself having completed whatever challenge they may have concocted," said Naruto who shut his lexicon with a snap and placed it in his cloak as the class walked in. Iruka then started his speech.

"OK class, today you take your graduation tests and finally become ninjas but I'd like to say what an honor…" by this point, almost all his students were asleep.

"WAKE UP!" the dolphin-man said while quietly casting his Kyotou no Jutsu genjutsu, before continuing with, "Now, before you can become official shinobi in service of the village you all have to pass a test: preforming the Bunshin no Jutsu!"

'_Perfect'_ thought Naruto, who could just feel the weight of the hitai-ate in his hands. Life was good.

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It is at around three o'clock that we look in on our hero one more. He and his best friend Hinata were currently roaming the streets and talking. Let's look in on them now.

"I know that blond hair is an intrinsic signifier of my identity, but I still believe I should dye my hair and even it out with the indigo in it," Naruto said to Hinata.

"I don't know, Naruto-kun. I think you'd look kinda like me," Hinata said and giggled slightly at that.

"Perhaps, but I am a shinobi now, and covertness is now most important. My blond hair is simply too conspicuous, and that is unacceptably detrimental to one in a support role such as me, and the sight of it could be lethal. Someone may find a way around my illusions and I cannot wear this hood all the time," he said, lifting the hood of his coat slightly for emphasis.

"If all you want to do is rationalize, then let's go get it for you as a graduation gift," Hinata said smiling, before dragging him along at a fast pace (to the under-exercised Naruto) to a nearby hair salon, ignoring his feeble protest.

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It was now around 9:30 when we look in on young Naruto, or at least what looks like him. Mizuki was dashing through the forest grounds of Konoha when he had to dodge a rain of kunai… before the kunai turned around and began following him. While he was running from the 'Kunai from Hell' while occasionally getting slashed by one, he tripped and fell… while all the kunai passed through him.

"What the?" said Mizuki, who had undone his transformation.

"If you intend to impersonate someone, than at least have the intelligence, both mental and tactical, to do so correctly. You were an estimated 10 lbs. heavier than I, 2 centimeters shorter, 3 centimeters broader, my book has three symbols on its cover, and I dyed my hair several hours ago," said a voice from the forest, which then revealed itself to be our hero, all his hair in that strange blue colour and his hitai-ate on the back of his left glove.

"YOU! Tell me, want to know why everyone hates you?" said/asked Mizuki, his voice dripping with sweetened poison.

"Is she a bright scarlet colour, terrifying beyond all reason, and have nine tails?" he asked nonchalantly.

"She?" asked Mizuki, confused.

"If the Kyuubi were biologically male, a single 'well placed' Suiryuudan no jutsu would have brought it to its knees," said Naruto, looking exasperated. (Author's Note: Honestly, why has no one used this as a reason for the fox being a vixen? Everyone's always having the Kyuubi shouting '**OF COURSE I'M FEMALE! Does a DEMON just HAVE to be MALE to be strong!**' and yet they give no evidence for that. Honestly.)

"Whatever! You're going to die now!" shouted Mizuki, who then threw his big-ass shuriken at Naruto… before they passed right through him.

"Obviously genjutsu was never a talent of yours," said a voice from behind him while a spike of pain flashed through his mind, followed by an eternal absence of sensation as his connection to everything below the neck was forever severed. His task completed, Naruto dropped the illusion covering him and removed his blade from Mizuki's back before firing a flare gun into the sky. Of course, though, he felt it right to reward himself, and with a scroll of powerful jutsu just sitting there…

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We now look in 11 hours later at the team selection process, where the Jonin and Hokage decide who goes with whom. Let's listen shall we?

"What do you mean 'I want Uchiha and Uzumaki'?" asked/shouted Kakashi.

"Well Kakashi, it does make sense. Naruto is a budding genjutsu master not seen since the fall of the majority of the Kurama clan, and Sasuke has shown a weakness to artifact-type genjutsu, so it's quite logical for Kurenai to be there sensei," said Sarutobi.

"But then who'd teach Sasuke-san about his Sharingan?" asked Kakashi.

"We both know you never pass teams, so if Sasuke activates his Sharingan then you could teach him how to use it," said Kurenai.

"And who'd be your 3rd team member, Kurenai?" asked Sarutobi.

"I was thinking Hinata," she said calmly.

"The Hyuuga hime? There's no way that team can be balanced," said Asuma.

"I think I see where she's going with this. It's a working team; one to see the world, one to build the world, and one to destroy the world," said the Hokage.

"Exactly," Kurenai said, smiling with happiness that even the Hokage thought it was a good idea.

"And that just leaves one person left to pick out their team before those content with random people get theirs assigned from the dregs," said Kakashi. Suddenly, a bundle of cloth flew in from an open window, before four kunai pinned the corners to the roof and floor, revealing a banner saying 'Here's the sweet and sexy Anko!' in bright purple letters, followed by a voluminous amount of smoke as the aforementioned shinobi made her entrance.

"Sorry I'm late, someone stole my dango," she said, with lightning flashing outside while she finished her sentence.

"Just pick 3 people," said the currently face-palm-ing Hokage, before pointing to a large poster with the names and pictures of everyone on it with those selected already having a large black X through their pictures.

"I'll take Inuzuka, Aburame, and Haruno," she said after a moment's thought.

"Why?" asked Kurenai. After all, Anko never does something unless it's 'fun' (read: lethal and/or torturous) or it'll get her more dango.

"The Inuzuka can shred people into itsy bitsy little chunks and I've always wondered how fast bugs can eat through a body," she said as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

"And Sakura?" asked Kakashi, fearing for the safety of said child.

With a holy cartoonish flame in her eyes, she pumped her fist and declared, "If Gai can get a mini-me then so can I!"

"It's probably not the wisest thing I've said, but… OK," said the Hokage, with a weary smile upon his face, before the rest of the Jonin selected their teams, most by just chucking kunai at the board and taking who they hit. What? That's how I'd pick my team!

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And now we look in on the morning after at the academy, were Naruto is just now taking his normal seat by the window, followed in shortly by everyone else. Then Iruka walked in.

"Well class, today I assign your teams, and tomorrow we won't be teacher and student, but comrades. That said, I'm just going to assign your teams now. Team 1…" He started, before I.O.N, the greatest author you're currently reading a story by, pulled out the universal remote control and hit fast forward and stopped when Iruka said, "Team 7 is Haruno Sakura, Inuzuka Kiba," *Insert howl of agony from said dog man* "and Aburame Shino," *insert shriek of 'WHY CANT IT BE Sasuke!'* "Your sensei will be Mitarashi Anko. Team 8 is Hyuga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto," *insert the sentence 'A logical decision'* "and Uchiha Sasuke. Your sensei will be Yuhi Kurenai." I.O.N. then uses the universal fast-forward button till Iruka says; "And team 10 is Akimichi Choji, Nara Shikamaru, and Yamanaka Ino," *insert loud cry of 'why can't it be Sasuke!'* "Your sensei is Sarutobi Asuma. You are to wait here until all your sensei arrive. Dismissed!"

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"Team 8?" asked a woman, wearing a dress made out of bandages with black hair and make-up lined crimson eyes, who just stepped in.

"That would be us," said Naruto, who, followed by Hinata and Sasuke, walked out of the room, following and followed by the classmen over the course of a half hour… with the exception of 3 sad people who'd be sitting there for a good three hours and more by half. On the up side, they were luckier than team 7, who were attacked and kidnapped by a trio of pythons… with the exception of Shino, who just walked next to the python after threatening it with his bugs, while his teammates struggled. But we don't care about them at the moment. Meh.

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It was about ten minutes later by the time team 8 found itself in a small restaurant after being led there by their new sensei. After getting their seats and ordering, their sensei spoke up.

"Alright team, My name is Kurenai Yuhi. I want you all to introduce yourselves in a way you find comfortable. It wouldn't due to know nothing of your teammates."

"Then can you go first?" asked Hinata.

"Alright, you already know my name, and I hate perverts and I like to read. You can give out as much information as you want though," said Kurenai while smiling at the group.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I like nothing and hate a lot of things. I have no need for hobbies and my dream? It's more of an ambition: to kill a certain man," the emo-prince said while looking away from the group. (Don't worry, he's not going to be that way for long.)

_An acute avenger complex, just my luck,_ thought Kurenai before she said "Alright Hinata-san, your turn."

"What do you want to know?" said Hinata in a tone that said 'ask and yea shall receive.'

"Whatever you want to tell us," said Kurenai. What most people didn't know was that, when Naruto was present, Hinata loved to talk. And talk. And talk. And so, by the time they finished their meal, she was still talking, only stopping when prompted by Naruto.

"That was… informative," said Kurenai, before turning to Naruto and saying, "Your turn."

"What do you want to know?" he said in the same tone as Hinata with a devilish smirk on his face.

"Name," she said, making sure to give no opportunity for a repeat of Hinata.

"Uzumaki Naruto."

"Likes."

"Reading, proper 'hello's, and Hinata-chan."

"Dislikes."

"Getting my hands dirty and those who dislike my likes."

"Hobbies."

"Reading and gardening."

"Dream."

"To be Hokage."

"Favorite food."

"Ramen."

"Miscellaneous."

"I have a scar in the shape of the Sharingan on the inside of my left knee. Anything else?" asked Naruto while giving away no more info than necessary, infuriating Kurenai that she could gain almost no insight by excess ramblings after each question. Also she was slightly disgusted at that last bit of info and somehow wondering how one gets such a scar. Eh, Anko-chan can find out.

"That's fine. Alright, before we all get on with our lives, I want you to meet me at training ground 23 at 7:30 A.M. sharp. You are going to be taking a second test," she said.

"What second test?" asked Sasuke.

"That first test of yours was to make sure you all were ready to become Genin, this test is to see if you're worthy of me being your sensei. But if you fail, you're all sent back to the academy," said Kurenai before paying the bill and 'poof-ing' away.

"Goodbye losers," Sasuke said, beginning to walk away before being stopped by Naruto.

"Wait. Sasuke-san, Hinata-chan, I want you both to meet me at the Hokage tower in 10 minutes," said Naruto with his hand on Sasuke's shoulder.

"Why not just walk with us?" asked Sasuke, feeling strangely out of the loop, with Hinata wondering as well.

"I'm afraid I'm not really here at all," said Naruto before he stabbed his own face with a kunai… and 'poof-ed' into smoke, turning out to be a kage bunshin the entire time.

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"Alright Naruto, what do you want?" asked Sasuke, although it came off as more of a command.

"I've brought you here because I'm afraid it does no good to have a teammate who's skillset is so incompatible with my own. Additionally, it is not wise to have a skillset as limited as yours, Hinata-chan," said Naruto, pushing open the door to the Hokage's office. Upon entry the Hokage greeted them.

"Afternoon, Hokage-Jiji. I have a bit of request for you," said Naruto to the aging man.

"Oh? What could it be?" asked Hiruzen.

"I think I have a way to open 'that cabinet' and wish to try for my teammates.," said Naruto evenly.

"And why, exactly, should I place such power in the hands of genin?" asked the Hokage, puffing away at his pipe.

"Because you've seen exactly how they work. It took me years to become even a novice in my craft, and it should surely take longer for anyone else. By the time anyone more than a genin could use it they would have no reason too. Reason enough?" Naruto explained, managing to keep his tone outside of condescension and with just enough arrogance to be convincing.

"Naruto-kun, if you think this is a good idea then your attempt has my blessing, but keep this an A-ranked secret," said the kage sternly before he lead them to the library, quietly but swiftly fleeing the scene as they entered.

"Why did the Hokage leave?" asked Hinata.

"Because if you screw up, there happens to be a rather large backlash," said Naruto before he jumped to the top of a shelf and scanned it before his eyes flashed with recognition and signaled his teammates up to him.

"Alright, why are we here?" asked Sasuke.

"Just push the panel to your left, the both of you," said Naruto, before they both pushed said panel revealing the tomes and tablets Naruto had seen so many years ago.

"Now just take the one that calls to you," said Naruto before they each grabbed one and the panel snapped shut again.

"Naruto-kun, what are these for?" asked Hinata.

"These treasures are each a part of a set of 14, and each details a path to incredible power. Mine is number 6, which ones did you get?" asked/said Naruto.

"I got 'XIII, the Twin Destinies'," said Hinata, showing off a composition style book with a picture of two swords crossing each other.

"'VIII, Sparking the Burning Will'" said Sasuke, showing a sloppily-written scroll sealed with an image of a circular weapon with flames surrounding it.

"Interesting. I want you to both read your books and do everything in them," said Naruto, before walking out the door. Then just before he left, he turned around and said, "I warn you both though, these books will change you. I cannot promise that the changes will be for the better, or even great, but they will suit you better to this. Your path is has been illuminated, and it is time for you to tread the cobblestones before you. I will see you both tomorrow. I'm sorry Hinata-chan, but I have to cancel dinner, I have training to do and so do you."

Then Sasuke said something so un-Sasuke-ish that if anyone who hadn't just heard what Naruto said, they would have detained him for being an impostor. "He really needs to lighten up."

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Meanwhile, in Suna, a boy wearing the world's stupidest outfit, which looked rather like a demented cat, was suddenly and violently kicked in the balls.

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**Me: And THAT is a wrap! I've decided to do this story in a bit of a looser format than my other works. I happen to know that this story is the first of its kind. Also, I'm not going to update until I have at least 10 reviews and an equal amount of favs. Not more, equal. If you have the time to favorite this, then you can write a 10 word review. Also I also plan on having one scene where Kankuro gets hurt, even if I have to break away from the story. To quote my friend Devin "Your hatred for Kankuro consumes you."**

**Kankuro: What's your problem with me?**

**Me: You look stupid and sound like a pedophilic rapist who can't even do that right. And for that. *Pulls out blade mace and hits Kankuro in the head with it***

**Shino: Excessively brutal, but I approve.**

**Me: Thank you. Oh, and the new Miyazaki film is coming out soon for all who care. I plan on seeing it myself. The first anime ANYTHING I ever saw was directed by Miyazaki. By this point, Miyazaki may do no wrong.**

**Random Flamer: Everyone makes mistakes, even Miya-**

**Me: DO NO WRONG! *Pulls out a Glock and shoots RF 3 times in the face, twice in the chest, and 9 clips to… his 'happy place' that isn't so happy anymore.* Anyways, the reason I mention this is because I've been re-watching all Ghibli Productions movies in prep for the new one, and it's starting to go to my head. Or maybe it's the fact I watch them while hyped up on Nos brand energy drinks. Nos, a higher octane. Yes, I just advertised for them. Anyways, if you see anything by me in crossover format with Naruto and one of the aforementioned movies, expect something fluffy and in no way my normal style. Later!**

_**Forever or Never,  
-InfinityorNone**_


	2. Chapter 2

Me: *Is busy playing video games*

Hinata: Um… should we, uh, stop him? We k-kind of have the intro to do.

Neji: Don't bother. He's been like this for weeks.

Tobi: Yeah. Tobi is sad that he's like this.

Naruto: Well what happened to him?

Shino: He left a note. *Hands Naruto the note*

Naruto: *Reading* Dear viewers and minion characters: I am afraid that I cannot be bothered to do my own intro today, what with Dissidia, Modern Warfare 2, Heartgold, 358/2, and Dante's Inferno all at my disposal. Thus, for your entertainment, I have arranged for this edition of _**Naruto, the Cloaked Schemer**_ to be brought to you via Zetsu mail. Z-mail: at an arm and a leg a package, you know he's qualified.

Disclaimer: I own the rights to nothing mentioned here. Except Z-mail.

Updated as of 7/29/12

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Today we look in on Konohagakure no Sato, specifically training ground 23, where we find one shinobi finishing with having stitched steel plates into a bible-sized book while enjoying the quiet. Too bad that wouldn't last.

"Naruto! What did you do to me!" came the scream from the man entering the training ground.

"Ah, Sasuke-san how is it that you can't say a simple greeting before yelling at me? At least you addressed me by my proper name this time," said Naruto, looking to his teammate.

"You dobe! LOOK AT ME!" Sasuke shouted, pointing to himself. Exactly as Naruto had claimed, Sasuke had begun to change, although the changes in his case were a bit more physical than in Naruto's case, with eyes turning green and hair growing long and reflecting red. The greater changes, though, in how his body held itself, growing far more willowy and flexible; Sasuke had grown the figure of a dancer.

"Hm… that's quite interesting. I expected the changes to be far more gradual. Tell me, how far into the book did you read?" asked Naruto.

"I'd say bit more than half-way through. The thing's not that big, unlike that bible you carry and I'm an Uchiha. U-C-H-I-H-A, got it memorized?" said Sasuke, before realizing what he'd said and throwing his hands to his mouth.

"This defies expectations; the affects upon your personality are surprisingly drastic. This deserves observation," said Naruto, who then turned away for a new surprise.

"Hey guys!" Hinata, or a given entity of Hinata, said as she ran towards them. While this was obviously the same girl as the day before, there were differences to normal, beginning with the haircut. With the twin frames of hair gone your gaze was forced away from thew-jagged cuts of hair towards her eyes, still white but dusted with blue powder, before being torn away by the smile beneath them. This bundle of light was wrapped in a midnight shirt and shorts, showing off the pale ivory below, and topped with an emblem handing from her neck, shaped with the six strokes of light.

"Hey, what happened to you?" asked Sasuke, before his hands again flew to his mouth.

"I just woke up and felt like doing something different for a change. Something wrong with me?" she asked, a sweet and sunny smile shining out.

"Hinata-chan, could you par chance tell me just how much of the book you read through?" asked Naruto.

"Maybe… a bit less than a ninth? I don't really know. Why?" she asked, looking perplexed.

"It is just a theory at the moment, but I have reason to believe the scrolls and books you gathered yesterday are causing physical changes in a direct proportion to the amount you've read of them; you have only read a small amount of the totality of the work, so the effects manifest are rather minor in comparison to Sasuke who has read at least half of his," Naruto said before ending the conversation when Kurenai walked on to the field.

"Morning team, today we're going to… What happened to Sasuke-san and Hinata-san?" Kurenai said/asked.

"They read," said Naruto, skillfully dodging the question while putting his book inside his cloak.

"But what does… actually, I think I'm better off not knowing. Anyways, today I decided that for your survival test, we'd have a spar, you three against me," Kurenai said.

"Heh, I could take you on all by myself," Sasuke said, nodding to himself while crouching slightly, his hands straying towards his ankles.

"Overconfidence will be your downfall, Sasuke-san! I may be a new Jonin, but if I was serious I could kill you before you even knew you were fighting me," she admonished, warning him.

"Sensei is right, you know. I doubt any of us can beat her on our own," said Hinata, shifting into a Juuken stance, although it was heavily distorted with the left arm hanging to the side and the right arm held more for a jabbing motion.

"Then begin. Don't hold back on me," Kurenai said as her team ducked for cover. All her team but one that is.

"I rather dislike forward combat, but it seems that I have to be the copper jacket of this operation. I swear, once we become an official team I will never do this again," muttered Naruto, before he held his arm to the sky. Then, in a flurry of rising pages, his lexicon came into his hand while a wind flew over the training ground.

"Sorry Naruto, not good enough," his sensei said, stepping to the side while launching a kick, knocking Naruto, who appeared at her side while the Naruto with the book in his hand vanished while dozens of traps un-dissolved from the trees and grounds, to the ground before she said, "Although I will give you credit, the use of a genjutsu to create a copy to fool me and your team was creative, but you made two mistakes."

"What could the mistake have been? My illusions are flawless!" claimed Naruto, trying to get up but failing.

"That's true, but you aren't. You created the illusion of the air, grass, and dirt around you being normal, even reacting to the wind from the genjutsu, but you forgot about the dust," she said, looking down at him with a confident look in her eyes.

"The dust?"

"The reason I chose this training ground is that the soil doesn't grip the earth very well, something you couldn't have known by the fact that it would have required actually going and inspecting it, which would have meant getting your hands dirty. When you layered your artifact genjutsu to cover you over a normal genjutsu to make the wind look and feel real for me, the dust appeared everywhere but where your covering illusion was," she said.

"And how did you manage to shut down the other illusions?" asked he, getting to his feet in a ready stance.

"You might be exceptionally skilled with genjutsu, but you still have much to learn. An artifact genjutsu has a downside, that it has to be anchored to something. A normal user binds it to a kunai thrown out of the way, but you didn't know that so it clung to you. When I kicked you, the shock shattered the genjutsu," she said, grinning at a chance to teach one of her students something already.

"That was quite eloquently formulated and insightful. Too bad your powers of observation won't save you though," said Naruto, who jumped backwards into a black haze Shunshin while she ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding a burning Fuuma Shuriken, which then returned to its thrower.

"Heh, knew you wouldn't survive long, bookworm. Let me show you how a real shinobi fights," Sasuke said, a pair of Fuuma Shuriken in hand with one held standard by the ring and the other held by one of the blades.

"I'm sorry Sasuke-san, I'm afraid you won't win either," Kurenai told him, forming a snake seal and seeming to multiply. It looked like there were 50 of her now, but whenever you looked at one of them straight on it vanished.

"Clones? I'm sorry, but that just won't WORK!" shouted Sasuke, who then threw his Shuriken in opposite directions, the blades deforming under the heat of the fire around them as they arced in semicircles to return to him.

"Oh look, there's blood on my blade. I wonder where it could have come from," Sasuke said, catching his now-misshapen weapons before he looked at each of the clones until he found the one that had blood under it, before he dashed forward to strike while Kurenai was disabled by the burning cut to her leg. That is, before a plant engulfed Sasuke from the ground.

"Sorry Sasuke-san. I'm afraid you'll be hanging there for a bit," Kurenai said, appearing behind Sasuke in a shower of cherry blossoms while the wounded copy of her vanished from in front of the Genin.

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It was about 5 minutes later that we again look in on Kurenai, who was now standing in a clearing, listening in and waiting for something to trip the sensory barrier she set up around the clearing. Suddenly she jumped to the side. Just in time, because a column of light suddenly burst forth from the skies above where Kurenai was standing, cutting a perfectly circular 1/4 inch hole about 3 feet deep where it hit the earth.

"So Hinata-chan, I see you're here to," Kurenai said, turning to her female student, who assumed her fighting stance.

"It wouldn't be proper to just wander off while the others are plotting. I'm actually here to stall you long enough for them to finish their setup," she said, before dashing off to attack Kurenai, swinging her arm in a slicing motion while light covered it like a bladed glove, which Kurenai managed to block with a kunai. After disengaging, Hinata ducked in, trying to impale Kurenai with her hand, before Kurenai rolled to the side while tossing a shuriken, trying to hit Hinata in the arm to disable her. Unfortunately for Kurenai, it just wasn't to be, as Hinata managed to repulse the surprise attack by sending a pulse of chakra out from around her, knocking the shuriken away. It was then that a burning shuriken burst forth, causing Kurenai to have to jump backwards to avoid being decapitated… and she landed right in the arms of Naruto, before a ripping sound was heard. She was then dragged with him into a black haze, reappearing in the center of Konoha's main road, while her clothes fell off as Naruto stepped away, holding a blanket.

"Naruto-san! What the Hell did you do!" she shouted, trying to vainly cover herself while about thirty men ogled her from all angles.

"I merely exploited a weakness of yours. Surrender now and I'll give you this," said Naruto, dangling the blanket from his hands.

"I-I-I… I… I surrender. Now give me that!" she said, before he tossed her the blanket… before it phased through her, not really existing while the world shattered and it turned out she was still in the training ground, fully clothed.

"I expect you're wondering what just happened. You see, when I was 'sparring' with you, I had a Kage Bunshin talk with Sasuke-san just in case my plan to force you into my menagerie of traps failed. Then when I was defeated, I had Sasuke-san fight you to test how skilled you are in genjutsu, incase my secondary plan didn't work. I then had Hinata-chan fight you to test your reflexes, which I find rather lacking. Using that data, along with a bit of psychology, I found it rather simple to trick you into victory," said Naruto, who stepped out into the clearing while the 'Naruto' who tricked her turned out to be a Kage Bunshin.

"Well, yes, you win. Now, could you tell me where you two got those new skills?" Kurenai asked, attempting to distract them from her horrible (in more ways than one) defeat.

"Bookworm over there gave us one of these," Sasuke told her, holding up 'VIII, Sparking the Burning Will' in his right hand.

"And what are those exactly?" she asked, slightly suspicious of Kyuubi activity in the written works.

"They're instruction manuals," said Hinata, pulling out her own book.

"Mine's a biography with instructions though," said a perplexed Sasuke.

"And my personal tome is an encyclopedia slash lexicon," commented Naruto, pondering this new information.

"Well, um, points of interest aside, I have good news for you all. Tomorrow we start out with missions and I expect you all to be prepared for it. Dismissed!" Kurenai said, vanishing in a puff of smoke.

"Later losers, I gotta go see a man about a pair of weapons," said Sasuke, walking off a bit before he was stopped when the world turned into pretty colors and almost immediately stopped, yet still leaving him with a sense of mind numbing vertigo.

"Sasuke-san, what weapons? Anything specific?" asked Naruto, not having read about the other book-bearers weapons.

"Thing says I need a pair of bladed disks, 'bout one hand from outside to center, made from a bunch of really special metals," Sasuke said coolly, hoping that by answering it might save some face from the fact he was trying to fight down his breakfast.

"Sounds kind of like mine, but it said a sword for me," Hinata commented.

"I want you both to have the same forger do the work on both your weapons," said Naruto.

"Why?" Sasuke asked, more out of rebellion than actual curiosity.

"These books have the interesting effect in that they unleash incredibly highly concentrated bursts of chakra when even slightly touched by someone who's not their owner. If someone went to the trouble of adding such security measures, then the information is most likely highly sensitive," said Naruto, slight condescension going into his voice.

"What are you going to do while we're gone then?" Hinata asked.

"What else?" said Naruto before vanishing into shadows before turning up at his favorite ramen stand with a fistful of bills in hand.

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It was a little known fact that Naruto was on incredibly well terms with the Hyuuga clan. That statement would actually be a lie. Naruto was actually all but a member of the Hyuuga clan, to the point that, for all intents and purposes, he lived there, only going to his own home to sleep and dust. This, though, was often more of a disadvantage at times. Times like now, as we find Naruto standing before Hiashi Hyuuga, in his office.

"Naruto-san, please sit down," He said, a brick wall painted in tones of pale beige.

"Yes sir. I have to ask though, what do you want of me?" asked Naruto, trying to bluff his way to safety.

"Don't play dumb. What's going on with Hinata; I know you have a hand in this," he said simply.

"A hand in it? Yes, I admit that much. But what is happening is purely because of her own desire for strength," said the, now, blue haired boy.

"Explain," commanded the leader.

"Yesterday I helped her to obtain a copy of one book in a set of 14. These volumes, while working something like instruction manuals, have the side effect of affecting a person's personality and physical appearance. I myself have one and so too does the Uchiha. But, these tomes also help to grant power on the order of Kage level," explained the illusion Nin.

"Description and extent?" asked the ex-twin Hyuuga.

"Unknown on both accounts. The latter is probably variable, but that may be incorrect. My own book has had very little data on the effects of the others. I have the descriptions of a few of the previous holders, but not enough information to draw a reliable conclusion from."

"Any known downsides?

"Element lock; they can no longer access the element or elements that are opposite the ones the book deals with. This means that Hinata-chan has access to light and, to a lesser extent, fire and lightning while water is forever out of her reach. Anything else?"

"No, that is all."

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Three months had gone by sense the formation of Team 8, and once a week they went on a mission. Sure, they were mostly things like watching dogs and capturing the occasional lost cat, but they were missions nonetheless. Alas, they did little to provide for the team, but that was what Kurenai was for. Over the past few months, the members of the team had grown immensely. Sasuke and Hinata had gotten their weapons made, with Sasuke's being a pair of throwing wheels with spikes on them, although he refused to call them anything but chakrams, and Hinata had gotten a long sword, a type of longsword, and all three had gained at least some new insight into their elements and crafts. Hinata had managed to refine her precision of light from the 'Colum of Doom' she managed on day two with the book to far more precise work with lasers, minor illusion, and forced darkness, while Sasuke had begun to use fire like second nature, with flames accentuating his every swipe and strike. While it sucked down his chakra like none other, it did leave anyone foolish enough to try and strike him with a nice set of leaf patterned burns. And Naruto had learned the most important part of his form of genjutsu: true attention to detail. Kurenai had him train his sight to the point that not even a Jonin could notice when he was placed in a genjutsu. This, of course, led to some rather interesting pranks around the village. But why we are here now is not to discuss the training of Team 8. No, what we're here for is a look inside the Hokage tower, where the team was just about to grab a mission.

"Let's see here, we have walking dogs, cleaning a man's shop, helping a woman with her shopping," the Hokage started, while a cat meow-ed in the background, before finishing with, "catching a runaway cat…"

"NO! No more! I am NOT going to be stuck with these missions anymore! I need a REAL mission!" shouted Sasuke, the air around him heating slightly.

"Yeah! These missions are a waste of our time!" continued Hinata.

"I concur. I actually had a plan for cloaking a set of my clones and having us take the day off to escape these 'missions' you assign to punish children for wanting to be ninjas," said Naruto through the book he was reading.

"Kurenai, do you think their ready for a C-rank mission?" Hiruzen asked, although that was mostly because Iruka was currently suffering a case of genjutsu-induced seizures for almost objecting to the request.

"Actually, I think it would be a good idea for them. They can start working on some practical skills. Like tact," she said, giving a small pointed glare to Sasuke,

"In that case, I want you to prepare for a week-long mission, excluding 1 day travel time, both ways. You'll meet your client at the south gate at noon tomorrow. Dismissed!" the aged Kage said while the shinobi left. Then, as an afterthought, Sarutobi shouted, "Oh, and ANBU! I want you to take Iruka down to the hospital. I fear he's soiled himself."

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Meanwhile, in Suna…

"I'm telling you Temari! Some random person just walked up to me and kicked me in the balls!"

"SHUT UP!" a blond girl with four pig tails shouted, before proceeding to use a gigantic fan she carried at all times to hit him in the family jewels, all the while muttering about "every 4th Tuesday," and "head aches and cramps" and all other manners of things.

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Naruto: And that's all he wrote! Well, right now we need I.O.N. to do the closing announcements and such, so I hope you can wait a minute. Shikamaru! How's the plan going!

Shikamaru: One more kill and we get the tactical nuke so we can finally end this!

Game: Beep!

Kiba: Sweet! You did it! And you got an achievement!

Me: NOOOO! So close! I almost had it!

Hinata: Your back!

Me: Zha? What ever. Oh, look, the readers. Hello, my peoples! Look, I'm sorry this took over six months to do. I'm also sorry it cut off like that. But High School is very difficult, particularly sense I'm not just throwing my grades away this year. And, as I said in my letter, there's so many good games out right now!

Sasuke: Alright, I'm positive your level's cheating! There's no way it could beat my Sharingan!

Me: Oh, that reminds me: if any of you have a PS3 and play Dante's Inferno, specifically the Trials of St. Lucia, I have a request of you. Should you be able to beat either of my levels, (one co-op, one standard) and happen to be the first person to review after doing so, I'll let you choose who becomes Lexius. That's how much I want to be reviewed. Look for my profile on PSN: Axilthenan. Anyways, I also have one thing to say: this is the first thing I've updated besides Fury of the Storm! Break out the sparklers!

Konohamaru: I got them!

Me: No Konohamaru! Bad! Put Hanabi down this instant!

Konohamaru: But you said to get the fireworks!

Me: …

Hinata: …

Naruto: …

Sasuke …

Neji: ….

Shino: …

Shikamaru: …

Kiba: …

Random Crowd of People: …

A Cricket: … Chirp! Chirp!

Me: Konohamaru, you make that joke again, I have Akamaru eat your future children. But now on to some sadder news: I'm on an official hiatus for the next few months. High School is sucking up my initiative and creativity and I'm currently trying to write a real book, and I'm busy with gaming and fifty bucks says none of you care about the excuses. That said, I'll still try to write up something for you guys when I get inspired, like a gallery of omake, but I make no promises on this. Hell, I'm surprised I'm still loyal to Naruto. With what Kishimoto has done to the series, it's dead in the water and the fandom has stagnated. Authors bailing left and right. It saddens me. But when I get back, I will try to update this fic first. And you get to see something that, to my knowledge, no author on this site has done before: the Battle on the Bridge: Raiga and Zabuza team up! That said, I don't want anyone to be discouraged. By the way, if you wish to lead an angry mob against me, Infinite Freedom is selling torches, pitchforks, and flamethrowers. Link in my profile right under the Gallery of Offensive Material. Now I'm just rambling. Ja ne!


	3. Chapter 3

**READ BELOW! VERY IMPORTANT! READ BELOW! VERY IMPORTANT!**

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**Greetings. This is Shinigami-Sensei here. I.O.N. has temporarily appointed me his, I guess the word would be executor... I think. He's asked me to take care of this for now, and didn't include any author notes or his usual junk, so I'm filling in. Also, and I'm sure he wouldn't want me to tell you all this, he's been kinda depressed for a while. He's actually been writing a lot of stuff, but he hasn't done anything with it and just keeps getting to about 1K word count before he just... gives up. This is the first full length thing he's been able to write in a long time, and he still didn't finish it. I had to write the thing with Kankuro at the end. Anyways, i hope you all can forgive him for taking about a year update this and can leave him some good reviews; show him how much the net loves him. He needs it.**

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**Hello, InfinityOrNone here again. I would like to say some things now that I know my (to use his term) executor is a moron: Yes, I've been a bit depressed for the past year or so. This is irellevent. I may not be medicated, but I'm dealing with it. Next, my scraps wither and die because I can't find the energy or interest to work on them. So what? Even if they didn't get finished, this did and I find this chapter to be one of the best I've ever written. Finally, I rewrote the thing with Kankuro at the end and spell/grammar checked all of Shinigami-Sensei's words, as it seems S-S's writing skills stopped progressing at seventh grade.**

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"How much longer 'til we get there?" Sasuke asked, hands behind his head, his now-hunter-green eyes closed to avoid the blinding sun's rays.

"Five minutes less than the last time you asked!" Kurenai shouted exasperatedly. They had been on the road to Nami for two days now and it was starting to show. After a small conflict with a pair of nuke-nin from Kiri, an event that had left one man with his arm laser-ed to ash and his body covered in first-to-third degree burns and the other having his mind rendered to such a state he was last seen eating his own feet and hurling his own feces, her team had elected to continue on with the mission (against her better judgment) and were excited and elevated, the experience exhilarating and endeavoring to expose them to elements each had wished to encounter and embrace. Unfortunately, this left them in a rather bored-as-fuck state all of about a half hour later. Now she was stuck trying to keep a rein on a psychopathic pyromaniac, a studious savant, and Hinata.

"Can you can it kid? I have a super-strong hangover here!" the bridge-builder Tazuna shouted as he pressed his hands to his ears between a little hair-'o-the-dog.

"I will cut you!" shouted Sasuke, only threatening and not acting due to the cauterized holes in his arm from his last five attempts to place something sharp, spiky, and wheel-shaped into the client's face.

"Could you please have some consideration for those around you? Ever?" asked Naruto, glaring over his book at his teammate while trying to devise a method of blocking out that damnable orb of Helios.

"You guys can bite me! I'm tryi- OUCH! FUCK!" Sasuke shouted as Hinata, having given up trying to avoid the sun and heat herself, decided to take his invitation literally, also demonstrating the problem with Sasuke's second-hand ANBU armor outfit: no protection to the hands.

"Hinata, could you stop that? Your maiming of your teammates isn't helping things," Kurenai sighed, wondering what kind of binge-drinking, wife-beating, baby-raping person she'd been in a past life to deserve this. Fortunately this seemed to pacify her and her comrades, as for the next five or so minutes all seemed quiet. Then…

"How much longer 'til we get there?"

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It's a little known fact that Nami no Kuni is ridiculously cold for its proximity to the equator. This is because it sits upon a cold water oceanic current, leading directly north from the southern regions, with a nearby intersection with a warm water current causing large fogbanks and helping cause Konoha's and Hi no Kuni's ungodly heat. Now, economically these oceanic features were considered a massive boon unto the general population as it allowed great amounts of fish-based revenue from both warm and cold-water fish in conditions replicable in exactly none of the other known countries. Unfortunately for our heroes, there are few who could, without undertaking specialized training, properly adjust to a temperature change of ±30 degrees F. It was because of this that Sasuke, Hinata, and Kurenai were regretting their choices in outfit and glaring at Naruto and his black coat. It was also rather cruel of Naruto to neglect to mention he had multiple copies of his outfit, instead favoring the option of reveling in his female teammates' lack of bras. Unfortunately for the team, cold has the annoying property of dulling the senses and weakening the will. These thing happen to be important, by the way, while one is trying to stay vigilant and alive, so when an excessively large sword flew through the air and towards the group, exactly none of them were able to detect it due to the chill or having a thick leather hood on their head, leaving the only survivor as Hinata, having been short enough that the blade missed her in its entirety while bifurcating Kurenai and Tazuna, decapitating Sasuke, and more-or-less scalping Naruto at eye-level. At least, this is what the scene looked to be from a third person perspective, while reality would have it that the three genin, Tazuna, and Kurenai were sitting in an eatery in town while a set of shadow clones were brutally and needlessly murdered, with the shadow clone disguised as Hinata maintaining the illusion of the corpses just long enough for their killer to be appeased, even appearing to have wet itself when Momochi Zabuza appeared and menaced it with the standard "Kirigakure no Kijin" speech. It was pathetic, really.

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"So, what are we going to do about Zabuza," Sasuke asked, the group having made it safely to Tazuna's house.

"What, exactly, do you mean? He believes that we're dead, thus has no reason to continue his hunt," Naruto said, looking perplexed while tailoring his extra jackets to fit his teammates.

"Sasuke-kun is right. Zabuza's a trained killer, a member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. He's going to find out that we're not dead and he's going to come looking for us," Kurenai said while staring out the window.

"Then we fight him back," Hinata said, her now-pupil-less-blue eyes glimmering with confidence as she flared her nice pointy sword for dramatic effect, instead dropping it and succeeding in scaring the living fuck out of Sasuke, who was now finding that his pants were dangerously close to falling off due to no longer having a functioning button, zipper, or belt.

"Hinata-san, think about this for a second; Zabuza is the latest in a line of 12 wielders of his sword, the Kubikiribocho, each gaining the blade after they took it from the cold, dead hands of their predecessor. You are a twelve-year-old who almost circumcised me… again! He's faster, stronger, more experienced, and just plain better! B-E-T-T-E-R, got it memorized?" Sasuke ranted as the floorboards and curtains around him were singed from his chakra.

"Way to read the BINGO book, Sasuke-san," Naruto deadpanned before dodging a spiky wheel to the face.

"Naruto, stop antagonizing your teammates. Sasuke, stop trying to kill them," Kurenai sighed, before standing up and saying, "Still, Sasuke-kun is right about Zabuza. We can't just charge in there without some advantage. He's a master of silent killing."

"I think I have an idea," Naruto said before absent-mindedly tossing a leather jacket to Hinata, who absentmindedly forgot to catch it with her hands, instead using the back of her head for the task and using the floor as an impromptu resting space.

"What, we embarrass him to death like we did to sensei?" Sasuke asked, "B'cause that won't work on him, you know. He participated in the siege of Tama no Kuni naked as part of a bet."

"No, I was thinking that this is the perfect setup for us. We already know our opponent's style and weaknesses, and we know about when he'll strike next. This means we can control the where, how, and result of the fight. He doesn't know who we are, what we do, or even for sure how many of us there are. He'll be on to us in a day or so, so all we have to do is wait around at a setup spot."

"And how are we going to get him there?" asked Kurenai suspiciously.

"How else?" Naruto asked rhetorically, an illusion of Tazuna, hanging on a string with a novelty sized fish-hook through his clothes, appearing before the team.

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The fog rolled in upon the Land of Waves, exactly as it always had and exactly as it always would. It was in this fog that the Oni no Kirigakure resided, the mists and clouds being his only real home. It was here and now that he would settle his latest contract, right on the doorstep of his enemy's home. All it would take was a little chakra to force the mist into the building and his preparations would be complete. Today his honour would be avenged and then some, as he brought in the heads of each and every person in the house. Nobody would doubt him this time.

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Tazuna's house was gone, or at least it seemed to be. The mists had come in extraordinarily strongly that day, and the entire building was enveloped in the stuff to the point that, at ground level, it was nothing more than a pale black with faint spots where the vapors swirled and eddied around objects in motion. Nobody even knew what happened as a fallen Seraphiel swept through their midst.

The mother was the first to go, trying to light her way through the gloom with a small lamp, only making her a better target. The monumental blade moved cleanly through her pale, supple neck as its weight carried it through flesh and bone without a drop of friction.

The next to die were the child and the tall black/red haired boy, the older one having his head carved away at an angle, leaving the damaged cranium to fall to the floor with a satisfying thump as vertebrae were ripped apart and fell away. The child tried to squirm away and shield himself after he felt the blood and bone hit him, but there was no survival. His final memory was of hanging his head in a prayer for safety as the assassin used the hole in his blade as it was intended: a reverse guillotine. Didn't he know? You don't pray do demons for mercy.

Finally he found his original target, the old man, along with the brunette woman and the two blue haired kids. The woman, obviously a squad jonin, was the first to fall, with a quick stab through her neck, leaving blood dripping down her bandage dress. In his opinion, it did nothing to mar the beauty of this wild rose as the dark liquid flowed between and around her breasts and pooled upon her stomach like a virgin sacrifice, cut down in the name of some long forgotten heathen god. Such a waste.

The old man would have been next but for the boy, who had thought he could surprise him with a sneak attack. While nobody would ever deny that Zabuza was a master of his craft, his sword a part of his being as much as his eyes and legs were, few knew just how far his skill went. His skill went exactly 29.323 centimeters, that being the distance he had pushed the kid's heart out of his chest. While this was happening, had Tazuna decided to measure himself, he would have found himself lacking. One could almost say he was 'half the man he used to be.'

Finally, having saved the best for last, was the girl. The only apparent survivor from his last assault and a stain on his reputation. She had no idea what she had done that day, but that would not save her. No matter how hard she begged that he stop hitting her, it still wouldn't save her. Regardless of how hard she cried for him to stop cutting her face, he wouldn't do it. It didn't matter how loud she screamed when he began clawing her limbs to ribbons and streamers of flesh, he would not stop. When he finally ended it, all that was left was a head, with the face torn off and the eyes gouged out and the teeth pulled away.

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Meanwhile, our heroes watched listened as Hinata told them what was going on inside the house while they waited in the safe comfort of a quickly made dugout. It was a simple enough plan of theirs, but complex in execution. It had taken three days for them to devise a way to layer enough genjutsu together to get the effect they wanted, and a day to set them all up. All they had to do then was move Tazuna and his family to a safe house before leaking out the location of Tazuna's home to Gato's men. The swine sent his current hit man out to do his dirty work exactly as they'd thought. All that was left now was the kill.

Zabuza walked out of the building, his sword across his back and his arms covered in the sweat of adrenaline. He was, for the time being, content. With this job done, he would be that much closer to his goal. That much closer to… It was then that he heard it: the sound of a twig snapping, the signal he and Haku had devised for an evaluator report. Odd, as there weren't any survivors he'd noticed, but it wouldn't do to ignore his tool's wisdom.

"Haku, report," he said, turning his head slightly towards the suggestion of an outline in the darkened mist.

Kurenai, who was about to perform the assassination, was now quickly finding things going right south of FUBAR. She hadn't known he had a subordinate around, and would need to do something quickly, but she had no idea what. Sadly for her, the time she spent thinking caused a delay, which was noticed by the swordsman.

"Haku?" he asked, resting his hand on his sword before…

"That's not me!" a voice shouted from outside the haze before senbon needles began to rain down on where Kurenai was standing, causing blood to drop, its strong scent easily detectable by Zabuza's honed senses.

"Haku, what's going on?" Zabuza demanded as his tool appeared at his side.

"You're under the affects of several genjutsu. They must have been setting this up for days now, as I count at least twelve of them," Haku said, his monotone voice using no more words than he thought needed.

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"Then let's do this," Zabuza said, before jumping back into the darkest parts of the mist while Haku moved to what he knew to be the genin team. While Haku did this, an ominous voice rang out of the haze. The voice was that of the swordsman, but that was not what made it ominous. What made it ominous was the fact that it resounded from everywhere and nowhere. It began in your mind, just between your temples, before moving slowly, so slowly, back to the center of your head, the place where you know it's _inside_ you but you cannot get it out. It began in your head, then moved out, seeming to echo from one part of the landscape, until you looked and it changed. This was the voice that made him famous. This was the voice of the silent killer, Momochi Zabuza, Kirigakure no Kijin.

"Brain, spine, liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, subclavian artery, and carotid artery: eight targets. Which shall I choose?"

"How about none of them!" Kurenai shouted, forming hand seals the entire time before vanishing in a cloud of cherry blossoms.

"Heh, you think your genjutsu can stop me? You should know by now, I don't need to see you. I think I'll pick…" Zabuza began, before his voice solidified behind her, "your heart!"

Kurenai, surprised by the attack, managed to flip over his sword, but caught her bandage dress on the trailing edge, cutting through the material and leaving it hanging loose and inhibiting her movement. Seeing that she'd have less than no chance to survive within the darkened fog, she did the smartest thing she could given her options: she tore off the rags of her dress and jumped to the roof of Tazuna's house, where she was promptly met by Zabuza.

It was now that Zabuza managed to get a good look at her. She was quite pretty, if he had to admit it, a fact made more obvious by the fact that she was now left in nothing but her form fitting red doublet, wire-maille armor, and sarashi undergarments. Still, even if he _were_ to think she was so hot her ass could melt rock, that still didn't change the most important thing about her.

"You're Yuhi Kurenai! You're the Kekkei Fuin!" Zabuza shouted, his pupils beginning to dilate in anger.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Kurenai shouted back, trying to stall for time while she tried to subtly form seals for a jutsu.

"Don't play dumb with me, bitch! Kiri had spies everywhere, so we knew what you did. Yagura had an entire day dedicated to your achievement, sealing away an entire bloodline, banishing it forever! He even admitted to having spies in Konoha to try and have you transferred to Kiri!" Zabuza raged, readying his sword for an overhead chop as he glared at her with all of his hate.

"That was a long time ago, and means nothing to me now. Right now, the only thing that means anything to me is this!" she shouted before pulling a kunai and charging, flower petals flying off around her as she moved forward, only for Zabuza to do something she hadn't expected to be possible: he pulled back on his blade, placing it in an awkward one-handed grip, before flaring it forward, chopping her in two. Then, everything went red for Zabuza as he felt a pair of kunai being driven into the bottom of his shoulders and twisted. His last waking moments were of seeing the bifurcated log in front of him, and Kurenai fighting with Haku behind him.

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While Zabuza was dealing with their sensei, Naruto, Hinata, and Sasuke were having what was, at the moment, the time of their life. While Sasuke and Naruto were completely blind in the fog, Hinata was managing to shield them a good 80 percent of the time. Unfortunately for them all, they just didn't have the advantage in the fight. Hinata's jutsu relied on light and were thus useless in the darkness, Sasuke's abilities all worked through fire, but the air was to moist for even a spark to survive, and Naruto's power was with constructed illusions, mere figments of chakra and light, and his opponent was just as blind as they were at the moment, only he could track them by sound.

"Dimmit, I can't fight like this!" shouted Sasuke, having pulled out another needle before snapping it in half, "We have no idea where he is and Ms. Zatoichi over there can't cover us well enough for us to do anything!"

"I have an idea, but you won't li- AUGH- Like it!" Naruto said, being stabbed with yet another of the tiny spikes while talking.

"I don't care if he likes it, just do it!" Hinata said, deflecting most of another salvo of senbon.

"Then let us go," Naruto said, before he grabbed Sasuke and, with all his meager strength, threw him into the air, before using a burst of chakra to propel him into the air above the clouds.

"Hinata, throw me!" Naruto then shouted, before he too was launched into the air, forcing their foe to follow.

Upon exiting the mists, Naruto got to work. A bit of chakra manipulation to hold them in air, using a bit of tension from the mist to form the base, and a few illusions to make the appearance of a set of three people being there while he and Sasuke were partially cloaked and disguised.

Their foe, a ninja in an ANBU mask, wasted no time, forming hand seals and causing the mist in areas to condense and lash out at them. It was simple enough to dodge, but Naruto had to be careful if his longer term strategy was to unfold. Haku, meanwhile, was abusing his jutsu as much as possible, creating mirrors from the chakra rich vapors and moving about as fast as he could, usually nicking his foes with his throwing spikes and generally wearing them down, until something happened.

This something that happened was actually the result of Naruto's and Sasuke's unwavering talent at getting along with anyone so long as it leads to their survival. All it took was a few signals and a whispered comment, and it was set. Due to the fact that any time one of them, real or illusionary, would managed to get a hit or almost one on the fake hunter-nin he would duck into a mirror, they watched and waited and soon a pattern emerged, allowing them to put their plan into action. Making it look like one of his illusions had pulled off a substitution jutsu, Naruto took his shot and hit Haku as hard as he could with his book, the steel plating, 23 pounds of heavy stock paper, and magnified chakra burst causing Haku to go flying, disoriented while Sasuke prepped his jutsu. Then, as the sun rose above the tall, tall trees, Haku formed his mirror and Sasuke struck.

With his chakrams ablaze and the solar orb a halo about his head, there was only one thing he could say to summarize the situation best: "Welcome to the House of the Rising Sun, _bitch!_"

Haku's mirror shattered as he was escaping it, leaving a few perfectly angular gouges and interesting bone fractures as he emerged. Looking over to his master, whom he saw was rather busy being stabbed, he acted quickly. He who fights then runs away, lives to fight another day.

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When Zabuza and Haku arrived at their base of operations, they were a mess. Haku had multiple compound fractures, multiple sections of flesh shaven off, and was missing a section of his leg in its entirety, and Zabuza was only alive by the quick use of elemental manipulation by Haku, chilling his flesh and creating some temporary artificial blood vessels until he managed to stitch the real ones together. The real worst part, though, was that they were almost killed in what was expected to be an easy, if brutal, operation.

"Haku, report," Zabuza said, his voice worn from exhaustion and having refused to be unconscious for the duration of his tool's medical procedures.

"Target is protected by 5 shinobi, 4 genin and 1 jonin. The greatest threat, at the moment, is from the jonin, Yuhi Kurenai. She has some of the greatest genjutsu skills in the world, nearly equal to those of Uchiha Itachi, and the intelligence to use them to such an effect as to render you near death," Haku began, before being stopped by Zabuza.

"I know that already! Everyone in Kiri knows about her skills, she had a 'capture at all cost' order on her head. What of the gaki that did this to you?"

"As stated, she has 4 genin under her command, although I only managed to get a look at three of them. There was a male, brunette, about 140 centimeters tall, well muscled and fast, far stronger than he looks, being capable of punching me a full 31.4 meters horizontal for 1 meter of fall. Then there was a female, pink hair, about 149 centimeters tall, wields a set of thinned kunai, exceptionally fast but not well coordinated. Offensive capabilities unknown at this time due to lack of observational skills. Next is a male, black and dark red hair, exactly as presented in your original attack. Wields a pair of spiked wheels and has excellent reflexes and moderate speed. Has incredible skill with fire manipulation, managing to shatter one of my mirrors with me inside, even if it was only at one-third normal thickness," Haku began.

"Shattered your mirror? That what caused your injuries?" Zabuza interrupted to ask, analyzing this latest weakness in his student's techniques.

"Yes, an unexpected result on my part. I believe theirs as well, as I expect they were aiming for my head, but assumptions should not be made based upon their leader. I also assume he has some genjutsu skills based upon him being the only one besides the jonin whose appearance matches from your original strike. Finally, there is one last student, although I was unable to see them. Based upon voice, I expect female, and also a swordsman, although most likely a novice as her teammates did not trust her defensive skills. Also, based upon their referencing her as Ms. Zatoichi, I suspect her to be blind," Haku finished, before leaving his seiza position to prepare some medicine for both of their recoveries.

Things continued along these lines for a few minutes, until Zabuza asked, "Hey Haku, who's Zatoichi?"

"Blind swordsman from a few movies. Gozu… Gozu and I would go see them once and a while," Haku said, slightly misty eyed at the mention of his fallen comrade.

"Whatever. I've got a task for you," Zabuza said, causing Haku to revert to his shinobi mentality.

"What is it," he asked, putting the mortar and pestle in his hands back on their table next to his dwindling supply of comphrey and wolfsbane.

"I want you to prepare enough medicine to last for a while. Then, as soon as you're able to, no later, I want you to go to Kawa no Kuni. Look for a mining town, under the control of an old friend of mine," Zabuza said before coughing, a bit of congealed blood now globbed in his palm.

"Who is it you want me to find," asked Haku, turning back to his original task.

"Kurosuki Raiga. Tell him a fellow swordsman is calling in a debt," Zabuza said, before passing out in anemic exhaustion.

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At the same time as this was going on, somewhere in Suna, Kankuro had finally made an important discovery. He was in a club, no kunoichi but a lot of pretty girls, when he learned this which would change the world of perverts forever. Let's watch.

"Hey sexy, nice shirt! It would look better on my floor though!" he said, drunk off his ass and deciding to go with some pick-up lined from his favorite book, Icha-Icha Paradice, to woo a girl he met at the bar. She had that desert quality to her, with dark water-thin skin and piercing eyes, but also had a party girl's style with her see-through shirt and fruity drink. She threw said drink in his face.

After the first mishap, he decided to try another girl, one with messy blond hair that was downing shots of something clear and most assuredly alcoholic. He went up to her and said, "You've had enough little lady. Let's get you out of here and back to mine." She tossed back another shot then tossed a shot at him. Literally.

Kankuro, having decided that third times the charm, 'stutted his stuff' over to a redhead who was drinking from a pair of those drinks they serve in coconuts with bendy straws and little umbrellas. He imprivised this time, instead of using his book as a guide, and went with, "Now that's a lovely bunch of coconuts you have there! Any chance i could have a drink?"

She smirked at him, eyebrows raised, and said, "Thanks! They're 5.99 at the bar!"

"I'd rather suck on your coconuts! Any takers? you got two youre not drinking right there!"

She stoppped smiling and did what any self respecting woman would do: toss her drink in his face. Unfortunately for her but good for him, he was ready this time and opened his mouth, scoring a free drink for his troubles.

Still drunk and horny, Kankuro decided to go after this sweaty blond chick on the dance floor. Her left hand was had a noise maker in it and her right was waving with the music. He walked up to her and asked, "You come here often?"

She looked at him and, rather drunkenly, shouted "Sure! I love the music here! You come here a lot to?"

He smiled a lewd smile and said "I do to, but only in the bathroom stalls! Wanna join me?"

She stopped dancing and thought for a moment. She decided she didn't want to hurt her new toy noisemaker and that slapping was to nice for a perv like him, so she did what any well respected woman would at a time like this: she kicked him in the balls. Hard. It was because of this that he sent to Jiraiya the wisest words he ever said or would ever say: "Only hit on girls with drinks in their hands." He would later die a virgin.

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**Well, that's all he- and I- wrote. Sorry if I made some mistakes, I'm used to Firefox and can't type well. I also write as good as a 3rd grader. Oh, I also asked him about some of the things in here and he says he knows that it doesn't work that way, but it was more interesng like this. I also linked his account to his deviantart acount if you want to read his other stuff that he's done lately.**

* * *

**Again, I.O.N. here. To clean things up, I do know it wouldn't be possible to do that with fog, but I liked the imagery better this way. Also, I'm sorry if the chapter was a bit confusing for you, but I was trying to show how a battle with illusions would probably go, where nothing is real or absolute. You still have any questions, then PM me. P.S, as he said, the home page button in my profile now links to my Deviant Art account. Read what I've left there!**

**~Forever or Never~  
InfinityOrNone**


	4. Chapter 4

**I.O.N. here. I continue to not be dead, and Mr. A. Lincoln continues otherwise. Well, this is the fastest a chapter's come out in a LONG time. I'm just hoping that people start reading this again. I get that the massive amount of time between creating and postings can put people off, but COME ON! Eh, on with the show.**

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Three days: that was how long it took for Naruto to wake up. This in and of itself was no small miracle; after the shattering of Zabuza's comrade Naruto had used the last of his chakra to continue the illusion of his fake genin team and his chakra platform just long enough for their enemy to flee before he passed out, falling a good fifteen meters before hitting the ground, unconscious before he fell to the rocky ground below and lucky hadn't broken his neck. As it was, he suffered the effects of three incomplete linear fractures along his third, fifth, and seventh ribs on the right side, comminuted complete linear fractures along his fourth rib, left side and his sixth rib, right side, an incomplete transverse fracture along his left radius with a complete linear compound fracture of the corresponding ulna, an incomplete oblique fracture to his left fibula, a rather perplexing spiral fracture to his right femur, and a (thankfully) incomplete anterior fracture of the TH6 vertebrae, and these were just the breaks. His injuries were so bad that they had decided that moving him was too dangerous, instead electing to erect a tent on top of him and have one member keep watch over him at all times while Kurenai sent a letter to Konoha, informing them that they needed major medical assistance and would be forced to remain in Nami for at least another few weeks, longer without the requested aid. It was an understandable shock when he woke up after only three days, rather than the projected two weeks for him or the projected death for a lesser being.

When Naruto first regained consciousness, he was rather distraught. If he were feeling pain he would have been fine as he was used to pain, pain being the body's natural reaction to the fact that whatever you're doing is killing you, so stop and don't do it again. Instead, rather than the expected agony, all Naruto felt was a soft tingling sensation and slight pressure upon his face and chest. Come to think about it, he couldn't feel his arms or legs at all. He tried moving his fingers, but without result. Panicked, he tried to move both his arms and legs, but with an identical result. Scared, his eyes flew open in panic as he shook his head around, shouting for help. He stopped this rather quickly due to two reasons: Hinata appeared before him, her eyes far more blue than before but just as caring and her hair almost pitch black with only a blue reflection, and the fact that the pain rolled in, his chest, back, and limbs exploding with sharp burning needles.

"Naruto! Calm down, I'll go get Kurenai-sensei," Hinata said, and so she did.

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Red flowers blossomed upon a field of pale grass as Haku moved towards his destination. Had he known before hand just how much this journey would pain him, he might have waited a few more days... or just planted some tags on a load-bearing point of that bridge. Unfortunately for him he was already in Hi no Kuni and couldn't turn around or stop. His options depleted and blood supply depleting, he pushed onward into agony and the great forests of the Land of Fire. He quickly stopped for a moment after realizing that blood loss does not a fun tree-hopping experience make. Even so, he vowed that the moment the world stopped faintly spinning and he could feel his arm again, he would resume his journey… assuming he was still alive.

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"So, what's the plan?" Naruto asked weakly before indicating he'd like a drink of water, something which was quickly provided by Hinata.

"What do you mean by 'plan' exactly? You almost died, and you're still thinking about the mission?" asked Kurenai incredulously.

"Come now, we've proven to Zabuza that we're capable of harming and/or killing him. Someone who would be willing to exact a war-crimes worth of vengeance on a person who merely pretended to get killed isn't likely to simply give up when mortally wounded. For all we know, he could be calling in reinforcements who could be just as strong as him apiece. This is quite seriously a worst case scenario, and I currently lack the ability to even scratch my own nose. Speaking of which, if it wouldn't be too much trouble?" he asked and said, before Hinata did as requested. _Dear god,_ he thought, _I never knew how much misery is involved with the loss of one's limbs. I may have to do some volunteer work at the hospital, acquire some good karma make up for this._

"Well what are we supposed to do?" asked Hinata, worried and panicky about the whole 'being hunted by a man who had war-crime-ed a fake her' affair.

Kurenai looked at her charges carefully and remorsefully. She hadn't wanted to continue with this mission in the first place, yet she'd been foolish enough to allow her studen ts to decide for themsel ves, thinking she was strong enough to handle any problem that went their way. As she looked at Naruto‒ or more appropriately, the bandages covering the spots where his bones poked through the skin‒ she knew what had to be done. She stared directly into Hinata's almost-blue eyes and said, "We're going home. We'll leave the moment I think Naruto's stable enough for transport."

Kurenai had always fancied herself an expert on people, justly so if based upon her use of genjutsu to break the minds of her opponents. As such she was quite surprised when, after a second or two to process what she'd said, it was Hinata of all people (as opposed to Sasuke) who shouted, "What the Hell!"

"Yeah! I didn't almost kill myself in training a few times over the last few weeks just to give up!" Sasuke shouted, small sparks appearing unbidden from his excess chakra and emotions.

"Look, Naruto-kun said it best himself; we're going up against an opponent we almost died fighting once, who's going to have backup, and we have one of us injured. I can't continue this mission in good consciousness. Even if it weren't so, Tazuna betrayed the trust of the village with his faulty contract, so we have no obligation to help him," Kurenai said, arms crossed.

"Kurenai-sensei, we have to continue the mission though. When we agreed to continue this mission, we renegotiated the mission contract and it is, at the moment, binding. Bad intelligence is not the client's fault, and we'd be spreading a notion of weakness throughout the entire country. Konoha cannot afford to alienate an entire country simply on the whims of a single jonin," Naruto said, still weak but with thought and conviction.

"Naruto, I don't care; we're leaving and that's final. That's an order, by the way," Kurenai said, before walking away from the group.

"… So what do we do now?" asked Hinata, slightly reserved because of recent developments.

"We'll do the same thing we always do; we're going to ignore our sensei and do what we want anyways," Naruto said, eyes closed as he thought about a specific plan for their now-mutinous mission.

"We've a bit of a problem with that though. You still can't move… at all," Sasuke countered, deadpanning at the end.

"I can fix that. Hinata, where's my book?" Naruto asked.

"Right here," she said, before pushing the surprisingly-undamaged collection of leather, steel, and pages toward its owner.

"Good. Now if you could place my hand on it, CAREFULLY, I we can get started on this," he said.

"What are we going to be doing this time? Not that your plans don't work, I'd just like to know what we're doing before, and this is no big surprise, I'm left exposed and weakened to fight a jonin alone while you two do _something_ that makes other things into smaller things," Sasuke asked, rather justifiably curious about how this next plan will just barely not kill him.

"We don't actually have a plan if I'm left unable to get off of the ground, so I'm going to project a seal I read about that'll hide our chakra usage from Kurenai-sensei. After you both paint it down and activate it, I'll be able to begin the construction of our latest plot," he said, and it was so.

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"Excuse me," Haku said to a young man, wearing a dark coat with a pair of gloves, each obviously concealing a set of blades.

"Yes, little missy? You lost, or looking to _get found_? He asked, a lecherous grin on his face as he turned away from the old man he was busy harassing.

"Actually I'm looking for someone. My master sent me to find someone named Kurosaki Raiga. Do you have any idea where he could be?" Haku asked, smiling a bit while he toyed with this fool.

"Sure, he's in that house on the mountain top. Say, you wanna have a bit of fun before you talk to him?" said/asked the man with a perverse look in his eyes.

"… Are you gay?" asked Haku after a moment.

"Um… no?" the man said with confusion.

"Well, I'm a boy, so either you are, or you need a cold shower now," said Haku quickly before hopping off to the house while the man punched himself in the crotch, unfortunately (for him) forgetting his claws were pressure activated.

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Three days passed quickly, and were absolute Hell for Team 8. The easy part, really, was concealing the fact that Uzumaki Naruto was, at the moment, fully functional and mobile (something they had managed to hide through the use of sterilized glass shards placed along bandages around Naruto's limbs and the continued activation of the chakra radiant seal [something they would have to explain to Sasuke eventually] in conjunction with the fact that Kurenai was a rather poor sensor). Really, if you had asked the team (excepting Naruto) what they thought was the hardest part of the week, they wouldn't have let you finish the sentence before they told you that it was the training. At Naruto's bequest they had read on in their specific volumes about all their art, and were learning the advanced moves possible with their weapons and elements. The easiest of the pair's tasks were those of Sasuke, who was now learning the more lethal powers of fire and his weapons, things that elevated his art from 'put the spiky wheel in the bad people' and 'make stuff burn' to the more eloquent skills and stratagem of 'more fire does not mean better burns' and 'one strike, one kill.'

Hinata, on the other hand, training was a lot slower. She'd read to the later sections of her book and found the section on proper swordsmanship (something which, at least to Naruto, indicated that the books writer was a moron, especially as Hinata had told him how so much of the book described the use of the blade as a tool for manipulating light). The problem for her, though, was that the book included not one or even two schools of swordsmanship, but _nine_ individual schools. So much of her time had to be spent on learning them, and she unfortunately lacked a way to try them all at once due to a lack of chakra for shadow clones. As it was, the lack of a second blade eliminated the use of the ninth school and most of the advanced moves of the seventh, the third school focused on a backhanded style which she didn't have time to actually learn, and the first style was so heavily dependent on physical strength that it would be impossible to use for her. She rather thought that the sixth style was just too… contorted for her to use, and the fifth was doable, but so full of lunging moves that it would be a waste for her to try. The fourth was simply to brutal and chakra heavy, something that only those who had spent years honing their skills into old age would be able to do, and the eighth school had two distinctive flavors to it, one of which was a blind swordsman form and the other was simply insane. The only option she had at this point was the second style, and she hated it. For one thing, it was a dancer's style, and she absolutely hated dancing, and there was the fact that it was specifically outlined as the 'female's' style, relying on advanced use of chakra and gymnastics rather than actually facing an opponent. This didn't mean she wasn't better with it than any of the other styles she'd given a test drive, but that only served to make her more upset with it.

While everyone else was working hard on basic self-improvement, Naruto was working on something a bit less… traditional. Knowing he wouldn't be able to do too much in training, he instead continued his act, having had Kurenai bringing him books and propping them up for him at all hours of the day, focusing mostly on the geography and characteristics of Nami no Kuni. He also used his Kage Bunshin no Jutsu to fair effect, preparing the likely battlefield of the bridge for the likely development that things would go pear-shaped. He hoped beyond hope that he wouldn't have to use his ace-in-the-hole, but decided it was for the best. After all, tomorrow there would be blood.

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Kurenai woke up a bit late that morning. This was a rather unusual bit of circumstance as she'd trained herself to sleep in exact periods from 11:01 to 7:24. Quickly taking a look around, she noticed a few things out of the ordinary: the fact that it was at the moment 10:48 in the morning, the fact that her team was missing, along with their equipment, the fact that the water next to her bed was a slight purple colour, the fact that she could see from her window that Naruto wasn't immobilized in his tent, and (the most telling fact of all) she was wearing matching pajamas, something she refused to do as a bit of a 'screw you' to Asuma. There were exactly two explanations for what was going on: either her team had been kidnapped by those flying disks that some of her colleagues in ANBU claimed stole cattle and inserted strange objects into peoples rectums, or her team had secretly been preparing for a fight with Zabuza and his allies (against her orders) and had drugged her so she would be unable to stop them from going through with their plan and force her to charge down there and stop Zabuza for them. Now, she knew the which option was more likely between multi-eyed flying tentacle-people taking her students or her students having the skills and arrogance to drug her, attack three jonin on their own, pray for her to be willing and able to save their sorry asses, but she was forced to take the option she actually knew how to deal with. Besides, if it were the flying saucers they would just deposit her team in the forest sometime within the next week, unharmed and unable to sit properly for the next few days. Thus decided, she quickly got dressed and ran to the bridge, the obvious fight location.

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Naruto, Hinata, and Sasuke quickly realized exactly where they went wrong with their plan. Unfortunately, the exact part where their plan went wrong was when they went to execute it. The entire operation was going exactly how they hoped it wouldn't. Naruto, disguised as the brunette he'd created in illusion for the last battle, had tried to maintain his disguise along with the illusionary blond he'd created from the last battle, but unfortunately one of his opponents, an almost hunchbacked man with odd purple/green/brown eyes and green-brown hair, was able to see his illusions for the simple formless constructs of chakra they were. His fight was the worst matchup the team was forced into, but that didn't mean the others were on even ground with their foes. Sasuke was fighting Zabuza by himself in a 'war of assassins' where each kept using long chains of clones and substitutions while they each were forced into pure lethal strikes against their foe, just in case it wasn't a clone _that _time. Hinata, meanwhile, was actually doing the best of them all as she (under a thick band of pink cloth) maintained the deception of being a blind swordsman, managing to deflect almost all of the needles, the only ones getting through being in the Byakugan's blind spot, something easily explained by the difficulty of a person to hear behind them. Still though, the team was losing, with Hinata being the only one keeping pace with her foe and Naruto being effectively eliminated, surviving only by clever use of the only bit of ninjutsu he had any real skill with, and even with the occasional burst of twenty-two hundred clones he was going to die soon if something didn't happen to turn the tables or at least give him enough breathing room to activate his last-ditch maneuver.

"Hinata!" shouted Naruto as he dove past yet another ball of electricity.

"Yes? What is it?" she shouted back, the distraction costing her a bit of flesh as a pair of needles speared through her abdomen, luckily missing anything important and instead impaling itself in the gap below her kidneys.

"Any chance we could tag out?" he asked.

"Can't! He won't let me get out of this dome he made! Sasuke's busy too!" she shouted back, "Why don't you use that jutsu stealing thing of yours on him?"

"He runs his jutsu through his swords, and I just steal the chakra pattern of jutsu, so I can't touch him! I might be able to take Zabuza with something like that, but this guy's worthless to me!" he shouted, trying and failing to use chakra to hold himself down as his foe, one Kurosaki Raiga, used some jutsu to draw him into an electric tornado.

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Now, if this were a fantasy novel, this is the part where some coincidence of fate would save them; something improbable would happen to turn the tables as a bolt of lightning struck Zabuza allowing Sasuke to rescue Hinata before they saved Naruto, or the Sanbi would rise from the deeps to force the foes to team up to survive, or maybe Gato would come out and claim he'd foolishly hired a ronin army to kill them instead of a squad of Kirigakure oinin. None of these things happened. Still, just because this is a drama trope doesn't mean it doesn't ever happen. As Naruto was slowly being sucked into the electric vortex, something happened exactly when they needed it to: Kurenai planted both her feet in the face of both danger and Raiga.

"Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata! What are you doing! Are you trying to get yourselves killed? This alone warrants a court-martialing!" Said Kurenai as she stuck the landing from her combat acrobatics and landed next to Naruto.

"Sensei, can we do this later? Like, say, when most of us aren't bleeding?" asked Sasuke sarcastically as he used Naruto's dark-haze teleportation technique.

"No, no we can't! What were you all thinking! Even if we ignore the part where _you drugged me_, you STILL thought it was a good idea to go, _on your own_ and try to face down three, THREE, jonin! What were you thinking?"

"Sensei, it was my fault. I thought we could beat them with basic strategy even if I didn't know what kind of reinforcements would be brought in. I will accept responsibility for my actions later. Right now, though, we have a trio of jonin-level opponents to fight off and I really don't want to use my backup plan and DUCK!" he said, in that same lecturing tone as always unto he saw a dragon made of lightning plow through the underside of the bridge. This… did not bode well.

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"SHIT! Raiga, get your ass over here!" shouted Zabuza as he saw just who had dynamic-entry-ed his allies face in, simultaneously allowing Sasuke to escape from him.

"Shove it, No-Brow! I can take the bitch! It's just some pathetic kunoichi," said Raiga arrogantly as he brandished the Kiba blades he held.

Zabuza looked at the man in disbelief before punching him in the face and shouting, "You idiot! That's not just 'some kunoichi' for you to kill, that's Yuhi Kurenai! Even you should know who she is, after you sucked up to Yagura for all that time."

"Shut up! I can take her; I'm one of the Seven! I'm invi-" he began, until he was shut up by a punch from Zabuza.

"No, you're not! You're no real member of the Kiri no Shinobigatana Shichinin Shu. The only reason you got in was because Yagura liked you so much, and the only reason I didn't kill you is because Hozuki-sama said we needed seven members. You're nothing compared to Ameyuri, and you wouldn't even be a jonin if it wasn't for that kid on your back you think no one else knows about! Now stop arguing with me and take care of the kids… and try to stay out of my way," Zabuza ranted, before ripping the bandages off his face and charging the team of Konoha-nin as his… ally launched a jutsu of his own as a distraction.

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As this was happening, somewhere in Kaze no Kuni, ancient forces were stirring for the first time in eons. It had started out like any other mission for Kankuro and his siblings, but then after the bloodbath he was forced to flee because of some freak ninja wearing the weirdest, slimiest, and sky-bluest sneaking suit he'd ever seen. He'd been forced to run to the desert to escape, but he'd been stranded by a freak sandstorm. That was two days ago, and he'd been forced to wander and hope he got to civilization, when he saw something: a little girl, probably nine years old, with short dark hair, skin like sandstone, and odd blue-in-blue eyes upon her water-thin features. She'd said her name was something like Cha Nii before she dragged him to her village, a system of caves carved into the bedrock beneath the dunes of Kaze no Kuni. They had given him water and directed him to a wall with a metal plate on it.

"So I just put my hand on the plate and… what?" Kankuro asked the man, who looked to be about thirty or so, but was wearing one of those slick black hoods and suits everyone in the village was wearing, making it hard to guess his age.

"You will be judged by the Old Man of the Desert, as this relic of his Avatar sees whether you are worthy for his gift," the man said, his voice ritualized and filled with holy wisdom.

"Oh...kay, I'll do it," said Kankuro as he approached the wall, as the people of the village muttered under their breath, a few saying something that, had he been pressed on what it was, he would have said sounded like 'Maud-Dib' and such nonsense.

Slowly, so slowly, he walked towards the door, the muttering growing louder. Slowly he pressed his hand to the plate and, slowly, it began to glow blue. The blue traced itself into the wall, describing the outline of a door, which rose. Silence held dominion over the hallway, until someone said something. It was hard to tell who started, but within seconds they were all chanting the phrase, all but shouting, "The spice must flow!" As the door opened, Kankuro stepped back to look inside and was hit first by the smell.

"Cinnamon? That's it? Screw that!" he said, turning away.

"Command recognized," said a female voice in the walls, before the door slammed shut. Quickly following this was the smell of burning cinnamon.

Silence once again held the people of the village hostage, until something amazing happened; the little nine year old girl, Cha Nii, walked up to him slowly and reverently. She approached with royal grace and bowed her head. She then looked up to him and said three words: "YOU STUPID IDIOT!" before kicking him in the balls, causing a quiet popping noise if you listened close enough. On this day, an amazing thing happened; a man's stupidity and ignorance had caused a little girl to kick her messiah in the testicles. Women around the world suddenly felt a little happier, but couldn't tell why.

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**And thus it is. Yes, that's a Dune reference. I'm kinda into Dune right now. Is it canon to the fic? Who knows, who cares. Also, I feel the need to state this here, I'm actually rather dissatisfied with how the chapter turned out and might fix it up later, but not now. Now, I rest.**

**Forever or Never,  
~InfinityOrNone~**


	5. Chapter 5

Greetings, salutations, and hellos, everyone. I'm… sorry to say this, but Naruto, the Cloaked Schemer is now a dead fic. I know, I know, it's one of my best works, but the way I say things going and the way the story would have required them to go are rather different, and I didn't feel like becoming one of those authors who abandons the inherent theme of their idea in order to let other things take over.

That said… Hay, where are you going? COME BACK HERE! I WILL LET TOBI OUT OF HIS BOX!

OK, to those who haven't left yet, all… what, three of you? To all three of you, you should know that I don't plan on abandoning everything about this fic. See, I rather liked the idea of Naruto being molded into a grand-scale Chessmaster, and I also liked the idea behind taking genjutsu, the most underused kind of jutsu, and showing what it could really do when you stop running it with the chakra light ninja like Kurenai or having it as back up like with Itachi, but instead start hooking it up to something bigger, like Naruto. As such, if you want to see a smart Naruto, just how dangerous the power of illusion really is, and characterization that wasn't shoved down their throats, I want you to stick around, check the box that reads, "Author Alerts," and see what happens. Worst come worst, it still can't be as bad as Twilight!


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